In a characteristically terse post on X, twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey declared “delete all IP law.” Elon Musk quickly agreed with Dorsey’s statement. It is unclear to me which of these sub-declarations are included within the “all IP law.”
- Delete all Patent Law?
- Delete all Copyright Law?
- Delete all Trade Secrecy Law?
- Delete all Trademark Law?
- Delete all rights of publicity protecting individuals’ name-image-and-likeness?
Musk has previously remarked that “patents are for the weak.” In a sense, he’s right—but perhaps not in the way he might intend. That “for the weak” statement can be made of all property rights and the rule of law more generally. The “strong”—those with immense capital, entrenched market positions, and even private security forces—can often get by without formal legal protections. Might makes right. But the rule of law exists precisely to protect those without such power. Intellectual property rights, like patents and copyrights, offer individuals and small enterprises a measure of leverage—a tool to bargain with or push back against more powerful entities. That is a feature of the system, not a bug.
USPTO Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart offered her rebuttal — defending IP with examples from the President and Vice President, J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy and President Trump’s eponymous mark — then tying in Shark Tank as well. Director Stewart’s point here is that patent, copyright and trademark protections should be seen as practical tools that incentivize creation, ensure market integrity, and support entrepreneurial growth. Stewart emphasized that IP rights empower individuals and small businesses, providing the legal infrastructure necessary for innovation to flourish and for creators to secure investment and recognition in competitive markets.
For the past 30 years (since the rise of the internet), Silicon Valley has had a contentious relationship with intellectual property. Most of the tech giants are generating tremendous revenue from the work of others. Google search is copying and indexing the work of others. X and Instagram only operate if individuals provide their creative input. AI is trained on human contributions. While these companies have revolutionized how we access and interact with information, they have largely built their empires by creating systems that aggregate, distribute, or leverage content created by millions of individuals and organizations.
The AI Connection: The timing of Dorsey and Musk’s comments is particularly notable as they come amid a wave of high-profile lawsuits targeting artificial intelligence companies for alleged copyright infringement related to training data. Companies like OpenAI (which Musk co-founded but later left) face litigation from content creators who argue their works were used without permission or compensation to train AI models. Both men are using data collected from millions, and works created by millions, to train and develop their own AI systems. This context suggests to me that the call to abolish IP laws is less of an ideological commitment and more about addressing the growing legal challenges their projects may be facing.
Unfortunately, patent law has been approaching Musk’s wishes. The higher the bar for patent eligibility, patentability, and enablement, the more obstacles/the higher the cost to filing continuations and RCEs, and the more convoluted case-law becomes the less accessible patents become to individual inventors and those without lots of money, leaving he the patent system in the hands of the wealthy, whom do not really need it anyways.